AVADirect X370 Quiet Gaming PC Review

Quiet and Beautiful

AVADirect wasn’t really a systems builder on our radar until late last year when we reviewed their Avant Mini Cube Gaming PC. After extensive testing, we found that the system was well configured, well built, and well priced, quickly propelling AVADirect to the top as one of our favorite custom PC builders.

Recently, AVADirect sent us another one of the systems in their lineup, the AVADirect X370 Quiet Gaming PC, which as its name implies is AVADirect’s quiet gaming PC offering based on AMD’s X370 Ryzen platform.

AMD Reveals Ryzen APUs, Ryzen 2 and Threadripper 2 at CES 2018

To set most at ease, the APUS will be fully compatible with AM4 motherboards, with only a BIOS updated needed for newer CPU support. This lowers the cost of entry into the Ryzen platform, with tremendous upgrade options available later on.

Zen APUs are coming in Febuary which feature the Global Foundries 14nm process found in the current generation Ryzen CPUs. Both models will feature quad cores, but the Ryzen 5 2400G features SMT, a base clock of 3.6GHz/boost clock of 3.9GHz and 11 Vega CUs for $169. The Ryzen 3 2200G will lack SMT, be clocked at 3.5GHz/ boosts up to [...]

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December 26, 2017

The Best Black Friday 2017 Deals [Expired]

For all the readers living in the United States, Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you get all the food, drink and of course plenty of Black Friday shopping after!

Today and for the next 48 hours, we’ll be scouring the internet for the best Black Friday deals on technology, computer hardware, and other generally awesome deals you may want to check out. We’ll keep this post updated with all the latest deals, so check back often!

AMD 12nm Ryzen Pinnacle Ridge CPUs Rumored to Launch February 2018

According to a report from Digitimes, AMD has revealed to its motherboard partners that it plans to launch its next generation 12nm Ryzen CPUs in February of 2018. The new CPUs will be manufactured on Global Foundries upcoming 12nm process.

The upcoming 12nm Ryzen CPUs will be codenamed Pinnacle Ridge and will feature both a die shrink as well as architecture improvements over current generation Summit Ridge Ryzen CPUs. Like Summit Ridge, Pinnacle Ridge will be divided into Pinnacle 7, Pinnacle 5, and Pinnacle 3. Pinnacle 7 will be launching first in February 2018 followed by Pinnacle 5 and 3 in March 2018. Following these will also be the Pinnacle Ridge low power in [...]

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September 18, 2017

Mainstream Intel 8-Core/16-Thread CPUs Rumored for 2018

Several weeks ago, an Intel presentation slide was leaked detailing Intel’s upcoming chipset roadmap. The roadmap revealed a previously unknown Z390 chipset, which is a consumer enthusiast chipset coming in the 2H2018.

At the time, little additional details of the upcoming chipset was revealed however, according to a recent forum post on Notebook Review by a representative for system integrator, Eurocom, it appears that the Z390 chipset will support 8-core/16-thread CPUs that Intel may be releasing to accompany the new chipset. If this rumor is accurate, this will be the first time Intel’s mainstream platform will have 8-core/16-thread [...]

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September 17, 2017

AMD Ryzen 5 2500U Mobile APU GeekBench Scores Leak

Geekbench scores for AMD’s Ryzen 5 2500U APU has surfaced, showing almost double the performance of AMD’s current flagship consumer APU, the A12-9800B.

According to the leaked benchmark, the Ryzen 5 2500U scores 3,561 single core and 9,421 in multi-core, beating AMD’s current flagship APU, the A12-9800B, by 54% in single-core [...]

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September 17, 2017

AMD Threadripper 1950X De-lidded, Dies Removed

Der8auer, the German overclocker who’s become quite famous for delidding CPUs, has recently published a video not only de-lidding the AMD Threadripper 1950X, but he also removed the dies to learn more about what lies inside.

As the AMD Threadripper 1950X has 16 cores/32 threads, it was originally assumed to only have two 8-core Ryzen dies. Interestingly, Der8auer discovered that there are not two, but four dies under the heatspreader in a previous video. Further, each of the four dies are confirmed to be 8-core Ryzen dies by removing all the dies. This means that half the dies are disabled and are essentially just there as placeholders. Currently, it’s not [...]

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September 13, 2017

RTG Chief Raja Koduri Takes Sabbatical, AMD CEO Lisa Su to Take Helm

Raja Koduri, head of AMD’s Radeon Technology Group (RTG), has recently revealed that he will be going on a sabbatical starting September 25 until December.

According to a recent article at PC Perspective, employees of RTG received the following email:

RTG Team,

You haven’t heard from me collectively in a while – a symptom not only of the whirlwind of launching Vega, but simply of the huge number of demands on my time since the formation of RTG. Looking back over this short period, it is an impressive view. We have delivered 6 straight quarters of double-digit growth in graphics, culminating in the launch of Vega and being back in high-performance. [...]

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August 28, 2017

Intel Core i7-8700K, i7-8700, i5-8400 Geekbench Benchmarks Leaked

Geekbench scores of to Intel’s upcoming 6-core Coffee Lake family (i7-8700K, i7-8700, i5-8400) has recently been revealed in the Geekbench database.

Unlike the previous Geekbench leak, which was clearly a very early sample with not even a concrete processor name attached, the new leak now provides a clear image of the new processors complete with the processor names, codenames, etc.

AMD Launches Threadripper 1950X and 1920X HEDT CPUs

Just a few months after the launch of their mainstream Ryzen CPUs, AMD is launching their highly anticipated HEDT Ryzen Threadripper CPUs based on the Zen micro-architecture. The new AMD Threadripper 1950X and 1920X now make up the most powerful CPUs in AMD’s consumer CPU lineup.